Age Span for Draenei - Made by Adonter

I agree with Nat on this one. Leave the age of your draenei open to interpretation.

The argument that Velen is 25000 years old, and therefore draenei are near-immortal... Uhm, not sure I buy it. Velen is pretty much a special case, and shouldn't be used as "proof" that most draenei are really old. Blizzards intention is most likely that player characters should be pretty young, as quest givers on Azuremyst/Bloodmyst refer to you as "young one" at least once (I think ;3). I'm not trying to cramp anyone's RP here, if you wanna play a millenia-old draenei, by all means, go ahead

I just don't think age is all that an important question to draenei. They simply are. Experience and wisdom counts for far more in their society than just... The length of time you've been in existence.

Awesome XD I managed to post as "Faithra". Yep! That's me ;3

About Draenei and Age..

If I can give my 2 copper about it, I always say: Don't bother. The only thing that is really breaking lore is being born after the Exodar crash. We do not even know the exact time it took between the sacking of Shattrath and the Crash of the Exodar. We also do not know how quick Draenei Age. Although, Lord of the Clans does talk about a Draenei child being as old as an Orc's grandfather or something.. that is the only bit of evidence of Draenei Aging and that is a novel, those are not official lore as those get retconned all the time.

Also, about the travel taking 'ten generations'. When we talk about generations in the real world we don't talk about the average life span of people, we talk about important cultural changes. For example: The generation of the 60s and 70s, the generation of the 80s, the current generation, etcetera. Cultural things that put the people apart because of the period they grew up in. That means that, even in a human lifespan, we can have 5 generations in 1 lifespan. Now, if we assume all else equal that will mean that a 25.000 year trip taking 10 generations, 5 generations for each lifespan, that the average Draenei lifespan will be 12.500 years.

Now, I do not support or use that number. All I want to say is: Do you really think a species that gets that old really gives anything about the biological age of someone? Or would they more focus on their mental age, their wisdom and insights? And maybe, just maybe take into account the situation/time they were born and grew up in?

And that is how I always use Draenei Age, vaguely, talking about the time they grew up in as a measuring of age and not their actual number of years.

-----edit----

BTW Adonter, I'm not bashing your age post. When it comes to actually trying to create an age group I think you come pretty darn close. I just feel that the time growing up to adulthood is much too long. That assumes not one Draenei that was born on Draenor is actually an adult already. That is kind of illogical because why would a race, that is used to flee from the Legion, stay and fight if the lands they stand on were not so important for them because they were born there.

Hello.

I'm only going to post two links here. One that appears to be forgotten.
First hand information directly from blizzard:
http://www.worldofwarcraft.com/burningcrusade/townhall/draenei.html
If you want to follow the Warcraft storyline the Eredar race is 25,000 years old.
There are no Draenei or Eredar older then this.

The second link is about how hard it is to play an immortal character.
Now Blizzard doesn't do role playing tips or thoughts. Therefor there are no first hand info on how to play a Draenei.
But this site presents the difficulties of playing a timeless character quite well:
http://www.wow.com/2008/10/05/all-the-worlds-a-stage-so-you-want-to-be-a-draenei/
A big part of this concerns that it is impossible for a human mind to comprehend an immortal life.
And since you cant remotely understand it you cant act it.

Of course, nothing is cut in stone and the most important thing is that everyone are having a good time.
And you can bend the information from Blizzard and role playing standers in a full circle to achieve this.
I myself solve the problem by playing very young chars who never took a part in the old timeless ways.

Grimsain wrote:I'm only going to post two links here. One that appears to be forgotten.
First hand information directly from blizzard:
http://www.worldofwarcraft.com/burningcrusade/townhall/draenei.html
If you want to follow the Warcraft storyline the Eredar race is 25,000 years old.
There are no Draenei or Eredar older then this.

I thought 25,000 years ago when was the Burning Legion came, and that they had already been around thousands of years before that.
Anyway, the way I see it, you don't really need an exact age when creating a Draenei, just base how old you are around what you have seen and done, so, if you were born on Argus, you don't need to say, I am 26,752 years old and 6 months, you just need to hint where you born. "Ah...I remember Argus in all it's glory, before the Legion came." This implies that you were around on Argus and therefore must be that old.

The burning legion was created by Sargeras.
He was created by the titans as a defender of the universe.
After eons of doing his job he found that normality is chaos and released all evil he had captured.
(Among them where the dredlords.)
At some point he found and corrupted Argus and its inhabitants the Eredar.
The first to fall to the corruption was Kiljaden and Archimond.
Two friends of Velen who he him self resisted Sargeras temptations of unlimited power.
Some of the Eredar led by Velen fled Argus and renamed them self The Draenei (The exiled once).

Before 25 000 years ago according to the blizzard lore the Eredar did not exist.
Of course you are free to change the story too what ever fits the character you want to play.

I find that the best explanation is that 25,000 years ago the Eredar achieved everlasting life and good health.
That would give them at least 10,000 years to reform their society to fit such a long lifespan, before Sargeras came.

Grimsain wrote:The burning legion was created by Sargeras.
He was created by the titans as a defender of the universe.
After eons of doing his job he found that normality is chaos and released all evil he had captured.
(Among them where the dredlords.)
At some point he found and corrupted Argus and its inhabitants the Eredar.
The first to fall to the corruption was Kiljaden and Archimond.
Two friends of Velen who he him self resisted Sargeras temptations of unlimited power.
Some of the Eredar led by Velen fled Argus and renamed them self The Draenei (The exiled once).

Before 25 000 years ago according to the blizzard lore the Eredar did not exist.
Of course you are free to change the story too what ever fits the character you want to play.

I find that the best explanation is that 25,000 years ago the Eredar achieved everlasting life and good health.
That would give them at least 10,000 years to reform their society to fit such a long lifespan, before Sargeras came.

I thought Sargeras came 25,000 years ago?

Also, in your picture, is that you?

Nopp, Sargeras attacked Argus sometime between 25,000 and 10,000 years ago.

But in those 15,000 years the Eredar:
1. Built their civilization.
2. Lived long enough for everyone to forget the passage of time.
3. Get corrupted.
4. Lost the war with the demons.
5. Flee and find Dreanor.
6. Build and lose that civilization to the demons/orcs.

(Yes its me)

Grimsain wrote:(Yes its me)

Uh...

Personally I think everyone should just die and become death knights *nods* Think of the benifits
-Immortal as long as you keep a good maintenace routine
-No more living/dead wars
-Not affected by living issues such as breathing, eating, drinking
-If you don't like a part of you self, just rip off and replace
-Your own personalised runeblade and ghoul
And many more!


If Arthas put me in charge of advertising for the scrouge I could see the recruitment rates being a lot more then it currently is *nods*

Antadurunnu wrote:Personally I think everyone should just die and become death knights *nods* Think of the benifits
-Immortal as long as you keep a good maintenace routine
-No more living/dead wars
-Not affected by living issues such as breathing, eating, drinking
-If you don't like a part of you self, just rip off and replace
-Your own personalised runeblade and ghoul
And many more!


If Arthas put me in charge of advertising for the scrouge I could see the recruitment rates being a lot more then it currently is *nods*

This is the hour of the Forsake.... uh.

Tea, anyone?

I think it was in Rise of the Horde by Christie Golden , during a conversation between Thralls father Durotan and the Draenei hunting party lead by Restalaan, who saved Durotan from a crazed ogre, that life span was mentioned. It was said to be many orc generations, not immortal. To my understanding Velen is ancient counting his life span in millennia; therefore you have a personal choice, be part of the Argus survivors or the next generations of Draenei.
I think regardless of your choice, the Draenei have the most interesting history of any race.

I have enjoyed reading your forum today, I am interested in role-playing and your site has increased that interest.

/thank you

Io, EU Arathor

Velens flight from Argus was Twenty-five thousand years ago /blush

Io wrote: Velens flight from Argus was Twenty-five thousand years ago /blush

http://www.worldofwarcraft.com/burningcrusade/townhall/draenei.html
Directly from the official site long before the release of Tbc and the launch of the "new draenei race".
(The original storyline being created in warcaft 3 and then forgotten)
To quote the very first line: "Nearly twenty-five thousand years ago, the eredar race arose on the world of Argus."

Herby, the entire Eredar race, both the now demonic who are still called Eredar and then the untainted Draenei (the exiled once) arose 25.000 years ago.
Velen is not older then that or he was born an Eredar before the race existed. And sure magic can do that but to explain everything with magic is quite boring.
And since we know Sargeras and Archimond tried to invande Azeroth 10.000 years ago the flight from Argus and must have occurred at some point within those 15:000 years between the Rise of the Eredar and the first invasion in Azeroth.

Anything else is fan fiction.
Nothing wrong with fan fiction, but if you want to keep a baseline, that is it.

Come to think of it. I would be willing to challenge anyone to find any quest anywhere in game that suggest that any Draenei except Velen live longer then a Night/blood elf.
Actually, the book titled "Arthas" suggest the elf's don't live much longer then humans, however that book was horrible. At least according to me.
(No i have not forgotten about the 10 000 year old elf's, but that is no more, and they where never immortal. You could say they only had their aging paused by magic. Alextrazas magic to be exact.)

There is an npc on bloodmyst that says the following when you speak to him:

"On Argus, Mac'Aree was the most sacred of our cities. Would you Believe me if I told you that the walkways were lined with precious minerals? That the rivers glittered even in complete darkness? I long for those days... How long has it been? A thousand years? Ten-thousand?"

He is Jessera of Mac'aree. Now he looks like he lost track of time, can't blame him for it. But if it was 10.000 years ago, as he says, he would be older then an elf.

Indeed, in this I stand corrected.
There are quests suggesting they live 10.000+ years.
After looking closer into it i found a few others I forgotten as well.

I'll second that it's a very nice guide, but I doubt some of the content.

The annoying thing is that there are so many different sources, one says Draenei are Immortal, the other says they become 300 (yes, I seriously came across someone stating that Draenei could not age beyond 300)

Either way, Arukann was born on Argus, in Mac'Aree, That would make him around his 50.000th lifeyear if I am not mistaken, Draenei that old might be rare due to warfare, but there were quite a load of them as the inhabitants of Draenor weren't kids or teenagers when they arrived, then again, I don't even know for sure if anyone stated how old the average Draenei/Eredar was when they arrived there..

It will always remain a wild guess I suppose, but good to have debate about it in here, after all, guessing is more fun in groups!

Nah, there isn't many different sources.
There is only one. Blizzard, and blizzard says 25.000 no more.
Al other sources have created their own storylines.
Again, nothing wrong with that but that is the first official number.
Exactly what is "arose" is debatable, but as I already said in an older post I prefer the idea that 25.000 years ago they achieved ever lasting life and good health.

But it doesn't matter anyway, I have so far not come across a single player who played an immortal char.
Everyone play the mind of a human in a X year old Draenei body.
The reason for this is very simple, we are all humans, to us 10.000 20.000 50.000 years are only numbers we cant imagine what it would be like to live that long.
Our monkey brains simply cant handle it.
Thus we cant act it.
Many people like the idea of a timeless char.
That thought is in all of us, linked to the ever present fear of death.
But none are able to play it.

For example:
If a human speak to a 25.000 year old Dreanei.
And speak of the passage of a day, such a short time spread would be as insignificant to him as a few seconds would be to the human.
Time it self would become pointless, there would only be actions and consequence.
You do something, and you do it when its needs to be done, before its to late. To decide a day or a time would be pointless.
This blizzard refers to with the night elf's who after the war of the ancients secluded themselves in the forests losing almost all contact with the other races who fought the demons by their side.
And those who they did share the forest with viewed the elf's as pretty much gods.

Again, all these plotholes are also pointless since its a free world.
I don't like the immortal part of the dreanei story 1000 or 100.000 years, it does not matter I just don't like it.
But I simply don't create a storyline on my chars where they are that old.
And if anyone start to RP about it I don't join in, or act as if my young char simply ignore the old ways without disrespecting the elders.
But others do like it, why should I interfere with what they like? No one tries to stop me.

There are other far worse storyline ideas I have seen.
I still cant wrap my head around a night elf high priestess jumping the bones of a dreanei wandering corpse.
And not only that, manage to get pregnant. For an old time role player that's just... bad.

Throwing in my 2 copper:

It is rp. People can do or say what they want.

And with Draenei things are very vague. One says 30.000 years, the other says 10.000 whatever. This is a game, and the primairy goal of a game is to have fun. I don't think everything should be exactly lore correct. That takes out the fun to create things. Creativity get's you a long way.
Can't blame people for not knowing every bit of the Draenei lore, it's not the easiest and most obvious one.

After all, rp is fun. That first and foremost. Knowing the correct lore, timeline, age etc. are a sidefact for me.

I like the idea of 25,000 years ago they were at the height of their glory, so they must've lived quit a bit before that to achieve that greatness.

I do like what this has come to now; that 25.000 years ago the Draenei started becoming imporant lorewise and thus earned their place in a timeline, convenient for Roleplayers and for me that's enough to work with, and as Senra stated so beautifully: "It is RP, people can do or say what they want" Thank you Senra, you've honestly made my day.

I truly love to see all the coppers flying around.
As you might have noticed in this thread I like discussions.
Especially if the correct answer is fairly vague but has a core of truth somewhere.

Would be fun to see even more peoples coppers, then again it would be hard to throw something new into this.
Ahaa, the next challenge!
I challenge anyone to read this thread and bring up something new in here concerning the age span of Draenei.